Method of eviscerating shellfish

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for shucking raw uncooked unfrozen shellfish of the bivalve type which includes the method of opening the shells by shocking the shellfish, cleaning the viscera from the edible muscle of the shellfish and the apparatus for opening and cleaning the same.



1. The method of removing the viscera of at least one scallop from themeat thereof comprising the step of intermittently tumbling the scalloptransversely over an undulating irregular surface while pinching theviscera against the edges of the irregularities to thereby progressivelyremove the viscera from the scallop meat as the scallop moves over theundulating surface.
 2. The method of removing the viscera from scallopswhich comprises the steps of feeding a plurality of scallops over aseries of pairs of reversely rotating rollers arranged in an inclinedflight in a direction substantially perpendicular to the axis of therollers, successively rotating the scallops with all or less than all ofthe viscera attached thereto in one direction about their axes whileprogressively pinching and successively removing portions of the visceraand then rotating the rollers in another direction about their axes formoving the scallops over the flight of rolLers to clean the visceratherefrom.
 3. The method of removing the viscera from scallops whichcomprises the steps of feeding a plurality of scallops over a series ofpairs of reversely rotating rollers arranged in an inclined flight in adirection substantially perpendicular to the axis of the rollers,successively rotating the scallops with all or less than all of theviscera attached thereto in one direction about their axes whileprogressively pinching and successively removing portions of the visceraand then rotating the rollers in another direction all while directingwater on the scallops.
 4. A method of removing the viscera from themuscle of a scallop, comprising the steps of feeding a plurality ofscallops having viscera attached thereto transversely over a series ofinclined axially aligned rotating rollers while progressively tearingportions of the viscera from the meat until substantially all of theviscera has been torn from the meat.
 5. The method of removing theviscera of a plurality of scallops from the meat thereof byprogressively and intermittently removing successive portions of theviscera while transversely moving the scallops over a plurality ofaligned rotating rollers.